


Sometimes

by Averia



Category: Batman (Comics), Grayson (Comics), Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: F/M, Mentioned Canonical Rape/Non-Con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-22
Updated: 2015-06-22
Packaged: 2018-04-05 15:31:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4185117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Averia/pseuds/Averia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>More or less the bad things that happened to Dick, which are ignored in continuity because they were never handled by the ones responsible.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sometimes

Sometimes he looked into the mirror and wondered what had gone wrong in his life.

He had been born into the circus surrounded by all kinds of people, with outcasts as much as with the round pegs that had found a way into the square holes and animals most kids had never seen, only dreamed of.

In the beginning he had always thought it had to have begun with his father and mother falling to death but _sometimes_ he wondered if his life never had had a turning point. With the unique environment he had grown up in some psychologists would profoundly say the same. He had always known not everybody was keen on raising their child in the circus. But even that could not have been _it_. Could not be the thing he searched for. Perhaps it had begun with him, with his birth with his genetics and had established through the _unique_ environment, his parents _murder_ and his growth under the wings of the _goddamned_ Batman.

It had all prepared him for starving, starving for touch and warmth and people.

Normal was nothing he would associate with any hero, they were never normal. It was why they hid under masks and secrets. But heroes like them, heroes that worked in the dark, were different than the normal superheroes. They fought something different.   

He communicated through touch, through fighting, hitting, kicking and hugs, caresses, kisses, sex. If flying was part of him, then touch was as well. He needed both to ground himself.

And after what had happened with Mirage and later with Tarantula, the knowledge that his human mind could be forced to fall in love; the fear had never diminished. The thing he had starved for, the thing he had held holy, had left him _hollow_. He knew how many (but no hero, never) would say he was over exaggerating, it had only been women. He was a man. But really, did it matter? Touch was the same, always, un-applying to _gender_ or mindset _rules_.

Since then he had searched even more for a thing that could fuel the dying flame again. But nobody touched deep enough. Not Helena, not Barbara, nor Koriand’r, not the other women he had loved in his life and only he knew how many it had been.

He was sure somebody had called him whore behind his back and if he had not been a man Kory would have screamed it in his face after he had cheated on her with Barbara. Never would he have talked back. They were right. But he never did it because of himself he always gave his touch away to help others, to comfort them and to love them. He only touched what he loved. If it were lovers or his family never mattered. They held the same place in his heart. And even villains, even a Joker, deserved touch, another type but still a type that showed he cared.    

Barbara had sometimes envied the loyalty he only had for Batman and then said he needed a woman like _him_. But not even Helena had been able to give him what he needed, the only woman who had ever come close to his mentor.

He was flying not staying and he hurt them as much as he hurt himself even if he would always come back home. It was self destructive at times and it certainly was not right.       

Sometimes he looked into the mirror and wondered what had gone wrong in his life.

**Author's Note:**

> Technically this could be part of [Blue Taint](http://archiveofourown.org/series/237384).


End file.
